Religious Education The official journal of the Religious Education Association ISSN: 0034-4087 (Print) 1547-3201 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20 Whiteness at the Crossroad: Reflections on Race During Difficult Times Zeus Leonardo To cite this article: Zeus Leonardo (2018) Whiteness at the Crossroad: Reflections on Race During Difficult Times, Religious Education, 113:4, 371-374, DOI: 10.1080/00344087.2018.1478603 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00344087.2018.1478603 Published online: 01 Nov 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 73 View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=urea20 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 2018, VOL. 113, NO. 4, 371–374 https://doi.org/10.1080/00344087.2018.1478603 Whiteness at the Crossroad: Reflections on Race During Difficult Times Zeus Leonardo University of California, Berkeley, California, USA For roughly 25 years, my research and teaching have revolved around race in general, often Whiteness in particular. In the best of times, these are difficult topics to research and challenging conversations to have in higher education classrooms. I hesitate to call our current moment the worst of times since we have seen arguably worse eras, not to mention that situations could get worse before they get better. But I am committed to participating in dialogue about racial stratification across the disciplines, despite the difficulties it presents. Because White nationalism and nativism have been on the rise since Trump’s election, generating insights about race and Whiteness are more relevant than ever. I do not usually prefer that my research focus becomes relevant as a result of increased targeting of people of color accompanied by a rise in White nationalism. Yet it redoubles my commitment to the project of anti-racism from the classroom to the board room, or grade school to grad school. Maintaining the course during difficult times requires resolve and community. Toward this end, the following set of thinking tools helps me map out the intellectual territory of race and Whiteness. Distinctions As with any research program or teaching situation, distinctions are necessary in order to achieve a sense of clarity regarding the terrain. With respect to race and power, the conceptual cut between “Whiteness” and “White” helps me analyze the difference between an ideology and a racial identity. In the United States, membership in whiteness has changed over time, as with the case of Irish, Jews, and other white inductees into White raciality as part of a historical process and race contestation. Each group experiences a distinct process, which I do not have the space now to delineate. Suffice it to say, different “White” ethnic groups enter the U.S. racial formation with their own historical specificities, personal reasons, and particular forms of incorporation into a pan-ethnic White race. Some enter U.S. borders as colonizers, as in the English, whereas others escape persecution or seek opportunities as immigrants and eventually become White settlers. In contradistinction to a focus on White identity, Whiteness is an ideology that stratifies humans along what Du Bois (1989) once called the “color line.” Traditional race scholarship was guided by the question, “Who is White?” whereas more recent innovations in the literature ask, “What is whiteness and what ideological work is it doing in the world?” According to this emphasis, the racial project of Whiteness Copyright ß The Religious Education Association 372 Z. LEONARDO changes over time, constricting or expanding membership in the White race. The development of Whiteness determines which group is incorporated into the category of “White.” But the purpose of Whiteness has been remarkably predictable, which is to elevate the status of people considered White at any given point in history. Its modus operandi may change depending on time and place, such as Apartheid in South Africa, Jim Crow segregation in the United States, or Brazil’s whitening project. But Whiteness’ outcome is ideologically consistent, demoting and denigrating non-Whites even if it has been known to promote the relative interests of some groups over others, such as the much talked about “model minority” status of Asian Americans. Overall, I have found the conceptual distinction between White and Whiteness to be helpful in my teaching and writing. Emotions When teaching about race and Whiteness, emotions can run high. Particularly for White students and colleagues, the cherished concept of rational detachment may fall apart. In my experience, White Americans are not accustomed to analyzing their own racial conditioning and lack some basic emotional, praxiological tools that could shed light on their development. This is less a commentary on their personal and group development deficits but more an acknowledgment that power and those who accrue it build less interest in demystifying it. In more cases than we might acknowledge, Whites who participate in conversations around race and power are illprepared, either intellectually or politically, to reflect on their investments. This happens because they rarely put themselves in these positions, often confronting racism against their wishes or as unwilling participants. As a result, they rely on their emotions either to deflect real issues or to steer conversations toward their comfort zones so that they feel “safe,” at times even claiming they are victimized by public race dialogue. The intersection between race and emotions has garnered more attention in the research literature. From the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) 2017–2018 president, Bonilla-Silva’s theme of racialized emotions for ASA’s annual conference, Joe Feagin’s (2009) empirical study of the White racial frame and the role of affect, to Nolan Cabrera’s (2014) study of White male students’ feelings about race in higher education, the affective turn in race studies is in full swing. It leads to valuable insights regarding the non-rational (not to be confused with irrational) dimensions of race relations and the way Whiteness and White privilege detract political attention from a critical study of racism. With Davis and Ernst (2017), we may characterize White emotions as a “gaslighting” mechanism to pathologize people of color who resist or speak out against White supremacy. Another method of racial gaslighting turns legitimate concerns into racial spectacles, thereby turning their substantive claims about injustice into superficial complaints about life’s random unfairness. From classroom discussions to journal symposia, the intimate relationship between race, power, and emotions can no longer be branded or dismissed as controversial but part of the architecture of racial stratification. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 373 Generosity As we turn our eye toward Whiteness at the crossroad, we ultimately signal the Whiteness of pedagogy and work toward a pedagogy of Whiteness. That is, we recognize that the majority of classroom situations, from primary school to med school, function under the White zone of proximal development (ZPD), or more precisely of underdevelopment (ZPUD) (Leonardo and Manning 2017). As an appropriation of Vygotsky’s concept of the ZPD, the ZPUD speaks to Whites’ intellectual lag between their actual development and potential development, as it concerns racial lessons in life and schools. Said another way, when compared to the learning potential of people of color, for whom an accurate and scientific understanding of race may be a life or death situation, Whites’ often superficial apprehension of race is part of their political interest in maintaining a distorted image of race relations. Whites’ collective racial unconscious represents an inverted epistemology about the real process of racial struggle in everyday life. Casual pedagogy will not lift this veil of ignorance and must be replaced by a causal explanation of the process of racial accumulation. This last commentary is not a biological or genetic argument but a cultural framework through which we understand the central role that pedagogy plays in demystifying White racial learning. Whereas we capture potential learning with the image of the learner stretching for the fruit just beyond their grasp, Whites’ ZPUD for racial learning sets a lower bar or horizon for potential growth. As a result, people of color, whose advanced competence and expertise are captured by the image of picking fruits high up in the tree, are forced to gather bruised and rotten fruits below their knees in the orchard of Whiteness. We would do well to base racial learning in the classroom and elsewhere on the ZPD of color rather than the White ZPUD. Despite Whites’ arrested racial development, a pedagogy based on Paulo Freire’s (1993) principle of generosity turns White underdevelopment into an opportunity rather than a setback. The pedagogical goal revolves around a teacherly concern for students who need the most help while also being attentive to those who are ready for a space that is unsafe, uncomfortable, and unapologetically democratic. In other words, centering a pedagogy of Whiteness is not the same as centering Whites but setting a proper focus for our investigation. If it is safe, it is safe for taking risks. It does not follow White fragility but resilience of color to withstand inhospitable conditions time and again. Finally, against inhumane treatment, such a pedagogy affirms people’s humanity and recognizes their dignity. Note on contributor Zeus Leonardo is a Professor and Associate Dean at the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA. E-mail: zeusleonardo@berkeley.edu References Cabrera, N. L. 2014. “But I’m Oppressed Too”: White Male College Students Framing Racial Emotions as Facts and Recreating Racism. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 27 (6):768–84. 374 Z. LEONARDO Davis, A. M., and R. Ernst. 2017. Racial Gaslighting. Politics, Groups, and Identities 1–14. DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2017.1403934. Du Bois, W. E. B. 1989. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Penguin Books (First published in 1904). Feagin, J. 2009. The White Racial Frame. New York: Routledge. Freire, P. 1993. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. M. Ramos (Trans). New York: Continuum (First published in 1970). Leonardo, Z., and L. Manning. 2017. White Historical Activity Theory: Toward a Critical Understanding of White Zones of Proximal Development. Race Ethnicity & Education 20 (1):15–29.